This searing indictment, David Healy's most comprehensive and forceful argument against the pharmaceuticalization of medicine, tackles problems in health care that are leading to a growing number of deaths and disabilities. Healy, who was the first to draw attention to the now well-publicized suicide-inducing side effects of many anti-depressants, attributes our current state of affairs to three key factors: product rather than process patents on drugs, the classification of certain drugs as prescription-only, and industry-controlled drug trials. These developments have tied the survival of pharmaceutical companies to the development of blockbuster drugs, so that they must overhype benefits and deny real hazards. Healy further explains why these trends have basically ended the possibility of universal health care in the United States and elsewhere around the world. He concludes with suggestions for reform of our currently corrupted evidence-based medical system.

Check out the reviews. David Healy is probably the leading world expert on SSRI drugs.

This searing indictment, David Healy's most comprehensive and forceful argument against the pharmaceuticalization of medicine, tackles problems in health care that are leading to a growing number of deaths and disabilities. Healy, who was the first to draw attention to the now well-publicized suicide-inducing side effects of many anti-depressants, attributes our current state of affairs to three key factors: product rather than process patents on drugs, the classification of certain drugs as prescription-only, and industry-controlled drug trials. These developments have tied the survival of pharmaceutical companies to the development of blockbuster drugs, so that they must overhype benefits and deny real hazards. Healy further explains why these trends have basically ended the possibility of universal health care in the United States and elsewhere around the world. He concludes with suggestions for reform of our currently corrupted evidence-based medical system.

Check out the reviews. David Healy is probably the leading world expert on SSRI drugs.

"...You don't always know who the bad guys are," he says. "When you search someone's house, you have it built up in your mind that these guys are terrorists, but when you go in, there's little bitty tiny shoes and toys on the floor — things like that started affecting me a lot more than I thought they would."

...Military families wonder about the change, according to Joyce Raezer of the private National Military Family Association. "Boy, it's really nice to have these drugs," she recalls a military doctor saying, "so we can keep people deployed." And professionals have their doubts. "Are we trying to bandage up what is essentially an insufficient fighting force?" asks Dr. Frank Ochberg, a veteran psychiatrist and founding board member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Such questions have assumed greater urgency as more is revealed about the side effects of some mental-health medications. Last year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urged the makers of antidepressants to expand a 2004 "black box" warning that the drugs may increase the risk of suicide in children and adolescents. The agency asked for — and got — an expanded warning that included young adults ages 18 to 24, the age group at the heart of the Army. The question now is whether there is a link between the increased use of the drugs in the Iraqi and Afghan theaters and the rising suicide rate in those places.

"...At least 115 soldiers killed themselves last year, including 36 in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army said on May 29. That's the highest toll since it started keeping such records in 1980. Nearly 40% of Army suicide victims in 2006 and 2007 took psychotropic drugs — overwhelmingly, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft.

either they deliberately use/used the wrong word or they were too stupid to look it up. I suspect they deliberately used it perhaps because if they used the correct word more people would have looked at the initiative more closely.

which one do you think applies to WA 502, keeping in mind the 64 pages of laws now in effect-which few supporters ever read-and all the laws that never went away(Most of them)? Most legal professionals, when not on camera, call it decrim. On camera, magic pixie dust turns it into LEGALIZATION! Whoo Hoo!

and Holmes never mentions fixing the worst thing about 502 (supporters said just pass it and they'll fix it-like NAFTA)--

As a drug predating the FDA, colchicine was sold in the United States for many years without having been reviewed by the FDA for safety and efficacy. In 2009, the FDA reviewed an NDA submitted by URL Pharma and approved colchicine for gout flares, awarding Colcrys a three-year term of market exclusivity, prohibiting generic sales, and increasing the price of the drug from $0.09 to $4.85 per tablet

Numerous consensus guidelines, and previous randomized controlled trials, had concluded that colchicine is effective for acute flares of gouty arthritis. However, as of 2006, the drug was not formally approved by the FDA, owing to the lack of a conclusive randomized control trial (RCT). That year, the FDA started an Unapproved Drugs Initiative, through which they sought more rigorous testing of efficacy and safety of colchicine and other unapproved drugs.

...URL Pharma also received seven years of market exclusivity for Colcrys in treatment of familial Mediterranean fever, under the Orphan Drug Law. URL Pharma then raised the price per tablet from $0.09 to $4.85 and sued to remove other versions from the market, increasing annual costs for the drug to U.S. state Medicaid programs from $1 million to $50 million. Medicare also paid significantly higher costs—making this a direct money-loser for the government. (In a similar case, thalidomide was approved in 1998 as an orphan drug for leprosy and in 2006 for multiple myeloma.)

The exclusive rights to apply the cannabinoids found in marijuana as therapeutic agents awarded by the U.S. federal government to the firm KannaLife only apply to one specific medical condition, KannaLife's CEO told Toke of the Town Monday night.

Dean Petkanas, chief executive officer at KannaLife Sciences, told us that the exclusivity applies only for the development and sale of cannabinoid based therapeutics as antioxidants and neuroprotectants for use in the treatment of hepatic encephalopathy.

Kannalife: We are a socially responsible, phyto-medical company specializing in the research & development of pharmacological products derived from plants.

Question: If the patent (#6630507) is owned by US DHHS, isn't it really the peoples patent, and why should a for profit company be granted the license to profit from a patent ostensibly owned by the people?

Could it be that the "United States Of America" and the people of the United States of America are now separate and unequal things?

----(GFV: Note that the paper said "application" and not that it was granted)

by the U.S. government that said cannabis compounds are "useful in the treatment and prophylaxis (prevention) of a wide variety of oxidation-associated diseases," including certain types of strokes and immune-system disorders.

Chao quoted another patent application, by two government scientists in 2009, that referred to the "healing properties of Cannabis sativa," or marijuana, that have been "known throughout documented history."

"How can the government credibly deny the benefits of medical cannabis when the government itself is funding cutting-edge research proving the medical benefits of cannabis and seeking patents based on such research?" Chao wrote.

***

Feds close to granting medical marijuana patent to NY-based research company?

Update: KannaLife did receive exclusive rights to the US patent on marijuana, but CEO Dean Petkanas told our sister blog Toke of the Town last night that it only applies to a very specific medical condition and that they have no plans to expand their research. "We don't want to be involved in the production, growth or dispensing of marijuana at the retail level," Petkanas said.

For more of Steve Elliot's interview with Petkanas, click over to Toke of the Town.

Original post, 4:28 p.m., Dec. 19: The U.S Department of Health and Human Services is about to give exclusive rights to the government-owned patent on marijuana to a single pharmaceutical company based in New York -- a state that doesn't even recognize medical marijuana as a valid therapy.Think that's unfair, fellow Colorado medical marijuana patient? Well, you've still got a few hours left to write in and tell the government your thoughts....more